Gravitational waves, dark matter... Looking at the future of the universe from Tencent WE Conference

Attention to brain science has nothing to do with the rise of artificial intelligence in recent years. Tencent itself is also working in the field of artificial intelligence. In order to be a good digital assistant, Tencent builds new infrastructure through ABC technology of artificial intelligence (AI), big data (BigDate) and cloud computing (Cloud Computing). Tencent has successively established Tencent Youtu Laboratory, Tencent AILab, WeChatAI and other AI laboratories, as well as Tencent Robotics X Robotics Laboratory, audio and video, quantum laboratory and many other frontier technology research institutions. In application, Tencent has launched a series of AI + technology solutions, relying on sophisticated solutions, penetrating into the medical, retail, security, finance, social, entertainment and public welfare industries.

Participants invited at the conference are, without exception, for the external universe and internal universe, and for the outer universe and the universe. Participants invited in this regard include Nobel Prize winner in physics in 2017, Professor of theoretical physics of California Institute of Technology Honorary Feynman, and Kip, father of traversing wormholes? Thorn is an academician of the National Academy of Sciences, a professor of theoretical physics at Harvard University, Lisa Randall, an authoritative expert in particle physics and cosmology, and Mark McColin, a senior advisor on science and exploration at the European Space Agency (ESA), who participates in the Space Eye Hubble Telescope Project.

The internal universe is aimed at brain science, life-based science and artificial intelligence. The experts invited in this field are Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician of National Academy of Sciences, Director of Neuroscience Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, internationally renowned neurobiologist Pu Muming, authoritative expert of synthetic biology, and Shanghai Plant Physiology and Ecology Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Tan Chongjun, Director of the Institutes Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology and Director of the Icahn Medical Research Institute in Mount Sinai, USA, is a leading researcher in precision medicine and is expected to cure Alzheimers disease. In addition, Tencent Chief Exploration Officer Dawei spoke with Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature.

1. Gravitational waves and black holes

Kip Thorn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017, has been working to make what Einstein thought was impossible possible. On September 14, 2015, gravitational waves were detected for the first time in human history. Einstein predicted gravitational waves 100 years ago by the merging of two black holes. Gravitational waves travel to the US LIGO Observatory for 1 billion 300 million light years. Gravitational waves will bring revolution to mankinds understanding of the universe. This belief runs through Thornes life. Kip Thorne said at the meeting that we could now use gravitational waves to observe the universe. Gravitational waves, they are the vibration of space shape itself, electromagnetic waves are released by the inhomogeneous superposition of atomic and molecular waves, and force waves are the uniform release of mass and energy related motion, which involves a lot of mass and energy, and electromagnetic waves are easily absorbed or divided by dust or other substances. Divergent, and even if you are near the Big Bang, very hot, very dense places will not be absorbed or dispersed substantially. Therefore, different waves will be very different.

Speaking of wormholes, he also said in his speech that wormholes do not occur naturally in the universe, and need to be consciously created and maintained by advanced civilization, and then filled with special materials, wormholes can exist.

Kip Thorn is also a science consultant behind many classical science fiction arts. He has created the film outline of Star Trek, inspired by black holes, wormholes and time expansion in astrophysics. For the first time, he designed the wormhole as a time machine and pioneered the science fiction world. In the movie Star Crossing, he worked with the production team to show the amazing black hole Kagantuya in the universe, which is the closest black hole art to scientific theory so far. In 2014, after the star crossing, the global debate sparked controversy.

Two. Dark matter and the fifth dimensional space.

Lisa Randall once said, Of course we dont know all the answers yet, but the universe is about to be pried open by us. Einstein once said that the biggest mistake he made in his life was to conceive the cosmic constant, an unknown cosmic energy he assumed. Lisa Randall believes that dark matter does exist in the Milky Way. She even infers that dark matter was the culprit of the extinction of dinosaurs.

Lisa Landall once wrote Believe in intuition and enjoy science boldly. She painted a grand picture with the universe as the stage and imagination as the pen. When she did the experiment, she was surprised to find that a particle disappeared without a trace. From this, she proposed the idea that there was a fifth dimension space in the world that human beings could not see. Although the hypothesis has not yet been confirmed, it does not prevent Lisa Randall from becoming one of the most influential physicists in the world.

In her speech, Lisa Randall said, Even if we live in a three-dimensional world, we may have something from a more external space. There is no reason why the extra dimension does not exist. Einsteins equation can be applied to any number of dimensions. Actually, weve detected the effects of gravitational waves. Its through things like dark matter, which is the composition of our universe. It tells us that about 5% of what we know is matter. Only 5% of the universe is made up of atoms we know, Lisa said. Lisa believes in the existence of dark matter in the world. She believes that galaxy rotation curves can be used to detect dark matter in many different ways, such as Galaxy clusters.

If dark matter can have its own light, its own radiation, and possibly form such a disk of dark matter as the galaxys disk, it will have observable consequences, because it will affect the operation of the planet. Lisa believes that the extinction of dinosaurs may also be related to dark matter. She once wrote the book dark matter and dinosaurs.

Three. Space telescope and cosmos observation.

Mark Mcglaughlin was born in 1961 when man first entered space. He had an indissoluble bond with the universe throughout his life. He participated in the Space Eye Hubble Telescope project and witnessed many important moments in astronomical history: the first direct evidence of the existence of black holes; the discovery of Jupiters satellite, the most promising place for life in the solar system; and the capture of glimmers from GN-z11 galaxy 400 million years after the Big Bang.

In the James Weber Space Telescope project, the worlds strongest space telescope, the budget was seriously overspended and the launch time was delayed several times. This is a very challenging project, but we have successfully met the challenge by working side by side with all scientists and engineers from the United States, Canada and Europe, McCollin said.

Mark McCollin said in his speech: For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings have been observing outer space. We see a lot of light in the night sky. We know that this is the Milky Way. It has 200 billion stars, and we are just one very small part of it, and you can also see the galaxies around us in the upper left (screen), that is, some galaxies outside our Milky Way Galaxy. Now we know that even the Galactic galaxy is only one of many cosmic galaxies.

Humans need to constantly observe the outer universe. The Hubble Space Telescope has been in space for 28 years. The James Weber Space Telescope has a larger primary mirror, consisting of 18 lenses. The primary mirror has a diameter of 6.5 meters, but weighs about half of the Hubble Telescopes weight, about 6 tons.

James Weber will help us understand many mysteries about our universe, including the origins of these stars, the origins of our galaxies, and some mysteries about our own Milky Way, he said.

Four. The first case of artificial single chromosome eukaryotic cells and the hand of God.

Five years of struggle, Tan Chongjun synthesized yeast cells with only one chromosome, which is the first time in the world to artificially create single chromosome eukaryotic cells. Humans evolved from eukaryotic cells, and the yeast 1/3 gene is homologous to humans. He has a real hand of God, which is the most advanced breakthrough in the field of synthetic life. This research will help scientists discover the causes of aging and gene mutation, and hopefully become a powerful tool for cancer treatment, opening up a new channel for the study of the nature of life.

Deep ploughing in the field of prokaryotes for more than 30 years, he was originally a layman in the study of eukaryotes. His experimental idea was initially regarded as a fantasy and foreign colleagues thought it impossible to achieve. The experiment was very difficult, and the note took 2000 pages of A4 paper.

In his speech, he boldly speculated that eukaryotes such as humans, animals, plants and yeasts had the largest but random number of chromosomes. Yeast can assemble all the genetic material on a chromosome, just like prokaryotes. In future, chromosome fusion should avoid affecting gene expression and cell growth as far as possible. Knocking out near telomere repeats, the location of chromosomes is random and the centromeric location is centered.

At the end of his speech, he kept repeating that we should not simply send articles, but learn from great men and make bold guesses. He regards Newton and Einstein as idols. You dont need a lot of people when you guess the laws of nature are right. Imagination helps people open a door to the future, but it depends on reason to choose the right one. Tan Chongjun said that every day countless doors were opened by imagination, but he had to calm down the next morning to choose the right one.

Five, cloning monkeys and human inner universe mystery.

Pu Muming was born in Taiwan, studied in the United States and returned to the mainland. He founded the Neuroscience Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999 and served as the first director. He carried out drastic reforms. The Gruber Neuroscience Award jury commented that he had built the world-class Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai almost by his own efforts. In 2017, his team completed the worlds first somatic cell cloning of rhesus monkeys, a problem that has plagued scientists around the world for more than 20 years. This achievement will help scientists further explore the advanced cognitive functions of the brain and unravel the mystery of human cognition.

We have an inner universe -- the brain. In addition to the wave of artificial intelligence, there is also a brain science program in China. The brain science program in China is a two-wing study of human cognitive function and how cognitive ability develops. To know the structural network of the brain, we need a map of connectivity, a whole brain nerve map. How to diagnose and treat important brain diseases on both wings, and how the brain is universal intelligence, and how to do artificial intelligence inspired by brain science, that is, brain intelligence. Today, he is running around to promote the Chinese brain plan. The implementation of the plan will gradually unveil the mystery of the inner universe of the brain and lay the foundation for the breakthrough of artificial intelligence.

From the beginning of the brain project, there is a consensus that China should do something and do something wrong. Our neuroscience started relatively late, and the overall volume is much smaller than that in Europe and America. The number of people who do neuroscience and brain science in China is only one-tenth of that in the United States, so how can you make the worlds leading technology that is really useful and contributive to our society in such a big project? This needs to be considered. It is worth considering how to make a brain plan that can really give full play to our advantages and meet the needs of our society. Pu Muming said so.

Six. Non traditional doctors and cure Alzheimers disease.

Now, he uses this method to dig out the possible cause of Alzheimers disease -- viral infection. At present, 500 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimers disease, and every 3 seconds there is a newly diagnosed patient. If Joel Dudleys research is confirmed, it will provide a new direction for drug research. This disease, which has robbed hundreds of millions of people worldwide, will also usher in the dawn of cure.

In his speech, he mentioned that he would also cooperate with some pharmaceutical companies, because pharmaceutical companies would have a lot of data, for example, they would have a lot of clinical experiments every year, each clinical experiment may cost a lot of money, billions of dollars, will produce a lot of data. But people in pharmaceutical companies may use the data only once. One reason is the lack of data scientists. Although these pharmaceutical companies have IT, they do not have data scientists. Data scientists are another kind of work. They need to understand data, statistics and so on. They did not make full use of these data because they lacked such talents.

Besides, in the United States, the medical system pays more attention to treatment rather than prevention. But there is a medical examination industry in China, so there is an opportunity for prevention through digital medicine in China, because there is a medical examination industry, so I think there will be this opportunity.

We will pay more attention to the driving force of science and technology. This sentence comes from an open letter issued by Ma Huateng in October 31st. In his speech at the first WE conference, Ma Huateng said, This forum does not talk about competition between businesses or companies, which is very different from many forums I attended in the past. We are talking about how to use technology to change human life in the future and how to solve many problems in the future that we may not think of now. From the day WE was born, Tencent has given it many expectations, hoping to let Chinese users see the near future in a year or two, and through technology, improve human life and solve social problems. (Zi Qing)